Software for analysis of GPS & radio telemetry data of animals & wildlife

The following companies offer state of the art GPS wildlife tracking software

Animal Movement Extension

The Movement extension is a collection of over 40 functions to aid in the analysis of animal movement
data. The motivation for the creation of this program was the absence of a collection of tools with real integration into a GIS
(Geographic Information System). In addition, several functions in this program had not been implemented before or were specifically developed to address author specific research problems. The ArcView software program was chosen for development because of high degree of integration of its GIS environment, the ability to work with a wide variety of spatial data formats, compatibility with many computer platforms, andthe capability of its object oriented scripting language Avenue. The ability to cleanly load and unload code developed for specific functions (extensions) was an added benefit. The use of Avenue and ArcView has both costs and benefits. Implemented through a scripting language, several of the functions are significantly slower than compiled code would be. However most functions work as fast or faster than similarly compiled programs. On the benefit side the program has full integration with all other ArcView functions and extensions. The Movement extension works in multiple projection systems, uses the selected records (enabling complex queries or selections), inputs point and attribute data in many formats, and will integrate with many types of spatial data.

The Animal Movement Extension is written by Philip N. Hooge and avaiable without charge at

The program CALHOME(CALifornia HOME Range) will perform utilization distribution, or home range analyses on data sets consisting of a series of X,Y coordinates for successive locations for a
single animal. The program allows the user to choose from four different methods of analysis: adaptive kernel (Worton 1989), harmonic mean (Dixon and Chapman 1980), bivariate normal
(Jennrich and Turner 1969), and minimum convex polygon (Mohr 1947).

CALHOME is limited to a maximum of 500 data points. If you specify a Data File with more than 500
points, you will see a warning message, and will be given the option of proceeding with the analysis using the first 500 points in the file.

Biotas: Home range and spatial statistics. GIS interface. Biotas is a statistical and GIS tool for
Windows® written for ecologists and resource professionals. Biotas has been designed to assist in the analysis and understanding of spatial and temporal data. Studies that can benefit from Biotas
include, but not limited to, those dealing with wildlife, fisheries and plant or animal ecology. Functions includehome range, habitat use, movements, nearest neighbors, spatial randomness tests and more.

LOAS: this software is designed to calculate locations from radio telemetry studies. With its
combined spreadsheet and GIS interface you will find that LOAS is the easiest to use and most comprehensive radio telemetry software available for Windows®.

Ranges6 for Windows, software for the spatial and temporal analysis of location data. Analyse
unlimited numbers of locations collected by GPS, radio-tracking, trapping or surveys. The most comprehensive selection of home-range estimators and analyses of area statistics, range overlaps,
sociality, dispersal and habitat use. A Windows interface facilitates data entry, visualisation and editing, provides GIS functionality and imports & exports ESRI shapefiles. Data from hundreds of
animals can be analysed at once and results output directly into spreadsheet compatible files. An integrated help system outlines analysis options and makes Ranges6 a valuable teaching tool. A
new version, Ranges7, due out in November 2005, provides analyses that are up to 10x faster, and new visualisation options including animations.

Wildtrakis software for Macintosh computers developed for the analysis of radio-tracking or
other locational data. Currently there are no plans to produce a version for the PC, although similar software is available for that platform.

Wildtrak includes standard methods of describing and presenting data such as polygon and grid cell
analysis. There are also modules to analyse speed and distance of movement and more complex analyses to examine interactions between animals.